So in October, Lagrange Books published an awesome hard-boiled detective fantasy collection by the incredible Misha Burnett, and for some reason WordPress wouldn’t let me post about it for weeks…

But that was then. Feast your eyes on this sweet cover:

And the book itself is even better! But don’t take my word for it. Here is a great review from Jon Mollison:

Misha’s writing snaps along with the brisk pace, terse delivery, and blank slate hero that marks all the best hard boiled works. His understated descriptions and emotional subtlety are in display here at their finest. For his writing alone, this book deserves a place on your shelf.

Rugar’s World is a city set in a straight up fantasy realm. It isn’t our Earth plus magic, it is its own world with its own history and politics and cultures. Our protagonist is a quiet American type of guy who keeps the peace in a west coast city that lies somewhere on the cultural and physical border between LA and Seattle. City politics rears its ugly head and complicates otherwise straightforward murder investigations. Think Bright without the heavy handed identity politics. Or Law and Order with wands and necromancers and nations filled with golems and vampires.

Buy it today in Kindle, or in print from your favorite retailer. You’re going to love it!

At last, after many long months of work and the fantastic contributions from our authors, The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Magical Stories of Family is live on Amazon! Available in both Kindle and paperback formats for your reading pleasure. And if you’re enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, it’s included in your subscription!

This anthology celebrates the exhilarating wonders and hidden depths of family, as only fantasy can do. Featuring celebrated and award-winning authors, these stories will make you laugh, cry, and wish for more. Check it out, along with other anthologies from Lagrange Books!

If you like audiobooks and podcasts, and you have kids (and even if not!), and you like fantasy fiction, you definitely need to give Elderberry Tales a listen. The host and voice-actor, Carrie Coello, provides performances of classic and new tales. For this week, she graciously agreed to feature one of my own stories, a fairy tale about the holiday of Chanuka called The Princess, the Dragon, and the Baker.

Grumpy dragon is grumpy…

You can hear the podcast on Elderberry Tales here. When I get a little time I’m going to be setting it up as an audiobook for sale, but you can beat the rush and download it for free!

Thanks for supportingThe Wand that Rocks the Cradle!For our next exclusive story excerpt, we have the beginning of “Bellwethers Know Best,” which discusses the trials and tribulations of raising a young, powerful daughter when all the rest of the family want to get their two cents in. Enjoy!

Eulalie skipped down the hall, an amulet wrapped around her head to hold a cataract of lacy blue silk in place. Bracelets and tripled strands of beads ringed her arms. “Mom, I’m going out to play!”

Eulalie rolled her eyes and slipped a red-and-black cuff off her wrist. As she held it out, a small book slid out from underneath the satiny stretch of lime green scarf she wore as a chiton and plopped onto the floor.

“And the grimoire,” said Eden.

Eulalie handed it to her.

“And the Orb of Chios, while we’re at it.”

Pouting, Eulalie handed them over. “Grandma says she doesn’t know how she raised such a killjoy,” she said.

Thanks for supporting The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Today’s interview is with author Elana Gomel, who contributed the short story “The Dragon Detector.” Enjoy!

What attracted you to writing?

When I was five or six years old, I had an incredibly vivid dream about an infinite house. The house went up and down forever and if you fell off a balcony, you’d fly for an eternity. The dream was so compelling that for a while I was sure I was actually living in this house and my everyday life was a dream. Now the infinite house exists in my award-winning story “In the Moment”. I can share my dream with a multitude of people. This is what writing is for me: creating shared worlds out of private imagination.

If you had to tell someone, “If you like this person’s stories, you would like mine too,” who would you pick?

Before I was a writer, I was a reader; and since I am also an academic, writing about other people’s books, I have quite a long list of personal favorites and role models. I love generic hybrids: sci-fi and horror; mystery and fantasy. I appreciate vivid imagination and unsettling details. So if you like Clive Barker, China Mieville, Tim Lebbon and Tony Ballantyne, you might like my writing. My two recent novels, The Cryptids and The Hungry Ones have been compared to Barker and Mieville respectively.

Thanks for supporting The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Today you’re in for a treat: the first of our story excerpts! You’ll be happy to know that the stories are nearly finished with the first round of edits, which let’s us raise the curtain just a little bit. As the days go by, we are going to be periodically posting excerpts from the stories in the anthology to give you a little taste of the full package. Our first excerpt is the beginning of the short story “Dead in First Grade,” by P.L. Sundeson. Enjoy!

As an only child who did not play with many other children, Emma Peters had no one to tell her what school was or should be like. She was sure, though, that your teacher was not supposed to be dead.

* * *

Emma knew the days of the week, and she knew Thursday was a Work Day. So she was startled to see Daddy, in his dark gray suit and tie as always, waiting outside their gate that cool September morning. She threw herself down the steps and hugged him around his waist. “Daddy! I’m glad you came. Mommy said you had work.”

Daddy stroked her head. “I couldn’t let my little girl go to her first day of school without me.”

Thanks for supporting the Kickstarter campaign for The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Today’s interview is with author Marion Deeds, contributor of the short story “Bellwethers Know Best.” Enjoy!

If you had to tell someone, “If you like this person’s stories, you’ll like mine,” who would you pick?

What an interesting question! I couldn’t really think of anyone at first, so I asked some friends, and the responses were eye-opening.

People have suggested Seanan McGuire. I assume they mean her contemporary fantasy Incryptid series. I do see some similarities there, and with Tanya Huff, who was another suggestion. Both writers deal with an everyday world that incorporates magic, and characters who struggle, not only with the supernatural, but with universal issues; family, relationships, jobs.

Writers I would love to be compared to? I’d have to say Mary Robinette Kowal, especially in her short fiction. There are two San Francisco Bay Area short story writers whose work I greatly admire. Laura Blackwell has a story called “An Accidental Coven.” Laura Pearlman is published a variety of places, and her work seems light and humorous at first but soon you realize that there is more happening beneath the surface. I think I write in a similar vein.

Thanks for following our campaign as we launch The Hand that Rocks the Cradle! In our quest to help you get to know our authors better, today we will be interviewing W.O. Hemsath, author of the short story “Coffee Break.” Enjoy!

What attracted you to writing?

I don’t have the skills to draw or sketch, and that’s always made me a bit sad. But I loved to read and I loved to talk, so I developed a big vocabulary when I was little. When I learned I could paint with words to create art the way others paint with lines and colors, I realized I had a medium that allowed me to transfer the ideas in my head into someone else’s. From that point on, I was hooked. I’ve been writing stories and telling stories ever since.

How did you get to this point in your writing? Did you take classes, or intensively study particular authors, or simply do a lot of writing and learn as you go? All of the above?

When I was in grade school, I wrote for fun—short stories, poems, song lyrics, choose-your-own-adventure serial pieces for a friend’s on-line magazine, anything I could find. In college, I went to film school and got my degree in screenwriting. After that, I took off about ten years to serve a mission for my church, get married, have kids, etc. I dabbled with writing here and there during that decade, kept a journal of all the story ideas that kept popping up, but didn’t write much. I did start a Master’s program in Creative Writing during that time, but I quit towards the end of the first semester. I wasn’t learning enough from it to justify the commitment at the time.

In late 2016 I got serious about my writing again and was at a point in my life where I could dedicate some time to it. I joined a writing group, went to writing conferences, read various craft books and blogs, watched Brandon Sanderson’s online lectures, listened to podcasts on writing—anything writing related I could get my hands on, really.

We’re currently in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign for my latest fiction anthology, The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Magical Stories of Family. If you haven’t checked out our campaign page yet, I strongly recommend it; we have an author interview and an essay from another author posted already, with more to come in the weeks ahead.

But while that’s going on, you can read my first anthology—because for the next three days only, it’s available for free!

My first anthology, The Odds Are Against Us, is a collection of military fiction published by Liberty Island Media. The fine folks at LI told me that The Odds Are Against Us is having a special promotion today through Saturday. For a limited time, the Kindle edition is FREE for download!

So tell all your friends! And all I ask is that if you like the book, please leave a reader review on Amazon to let the world know what you thought of it. As you know, reviews are an important part of a book’s success.